


Sometimes We Believe

by Hmpf_MacSlow



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Horsemen Era, Slavery, Watchers, non-graphic/implied sexual violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-11-29
Updated: 2000-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-13 06:59:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/134301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hmpf_MacSlow/pseuds/Hmpf_MacSlow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Very old fic (one of my first two, I think, ca. 2000/2001), slightly improved. I chose not to rate this because, really, there's nothing worse in it than I encountered in YA lit when I was a teenager - but your mileage may vary. It <i>is</i> Horsemen fic. It's also Watchers fic. How would you go about Watching the Horsemen?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes We Believe

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to exorcizo_te, who was this story's first beta, many a year ago, and to amonitrate, who was its second beta, somewhat more recently, though still a few years ago. Heh.
> 
> Is the Watchers' plan stupid in the extreme? Yes. You got a better one?

In the small hours of the night she remembers the Temple.

In the dark hours, when the night shrouds the tents, when the deep breathing of the exhausted and the sobs of the desperate are all around her as she lies wide awake and hurting on the naked ground, her mind detaches itself from her body and is carried away on the night breeze.

Swimming through currents of air like a fish through water she is drawn irresistibly to the west and south. Floating across nameless deserts, across vast plains of rippling grass, across the roofs of villages under which people sleep quietly or in fear -- under which, perhaps, they lie in nightmares of the men who own her body but not her soul -- she finally reaches the Temple.

She passes the outer sanctum swiftly, not paying any reverence to the garishly painted idols. Entering a doorway in the shade of a column she finds herself in a world of narrow passages, gloomy corridors, and winding stairs. At the heart of it those who know the way will find the inner sanctum -- the greatest secret in a secret realm. A small room, devoid of statues, unadorned but for the indigo symbol that is painted on all its four walls. This is the centre of her world -- ancient and powerful, lit by the eternal golden glow of dozens of oil lamps.

She does not pray: her life is service. It is for sacred service that she was born and raised, like everyone else in the mud-brick warren of the Temple.

All but her bear the tattoo.

***

On the day when she was to receive her tattoo and take her final oath, a congregation of senior Watchers had been waiting for her in the Inner Sanctum. There were Poets in full ceremonial garb among them. They were all talking among themselves as she entered, their low voices echoing from the walls, creating a pervading murmur. When they noticed her they fell silent, measuring her with long, searching looks. Then they resumed their discussion.

She stood meekly, waiting.

"She is beautiful. That's an asset, certainly."

"She's _exquisite_."

"She's inexperienced. Too inexperienced for this."

"They all are. But she's eager to serve."

"Omens were observed at her birth."

"She has a good mind. A good memory."

"What makes you think they will take her?"

"She's beautiful."

"Do men such as these know beauty?"

"Why would they will let her live?"

"It's a long shot."

"It's all we have."

"It's madness"

"The Gods smile on the foolish."

A silence. "Very well then."

An elderly Poet turned to her. "You have been declared ready to Watch an Immortal. Those who taught you have expressed great faith in you. It is due to their testimony that we are considering you for a special duty. Have you heard of the Horsemen, my child?"

"Yes," she whispered, eyes cast down. "Although the Epics don't speak of them."

"Without a doubt you know the rumours."

"It is said that they are Immortal, yet it has never been confirmed," she said.

"That is right. We do not know for certain. Yet know we must. A new Epic would have to be written, or -- who knows? -- old ones to be continued, for they may have lived different lives before they became the Horsemen. We _need_ to know. We need someone to Watch the Horsemen."

Stunned, she looked up, and saw pity in his eyes.

"We will not make this decision for you. Only you can tell if it is your fate to do this."

She closed her eyes, her heart beating fast as the pieces of her life fell into place. Then she met the Poet's gaze, her head held high.

"I will Watch the Horsemen." She said it gladly.

***

Dawn is creeping up the sky. The silence of night is overpowered by a thousand early morning noises: pots clanking, a grain mill grinding, a spoon being stirred in a bowl. Subdued voices and soft footsteps. Slaves move about like shadows in the twilight.

The camp is awake long before its masters toss aside their blankets and put on their armour. These few precious hours before the four of them move about the camp, spreading fear like brushfire, are the only hours when the camp knows something like peace. A drab and joyless peace; peace that means nothing but the relative absence of pain -- a short pause for breath in a nightmare that can only end in death.

The Watcher is kneading dough. The sun has not yet risen over the horizon, but the sky is brightening slowly. The pain in her side has grown better and she now feels certain that it will not kill her. A little to her right, one of the new girls is sitting, staring at the Watcher's face in terrified fascination. She pauses to smile at the girl. She knows that her face bears witness to one of Kronos's fits of fury; she also knows there is worse than this. She has been in the camp for a long time: two years have passed since she allowed herself to be captured. A long time.

The girl blushes as she realizes she has been caught staring. She is young. A few days ago she was only a village girl. Now she is one of the chosen, one of a handful to survive the annihilation of her world. She is holding out better than might be expected, the Watcher muses as she forms little flat breads. Maybe she _is_ one of the chosen -- one to be recruited, to share the sacred duty.

A commotion followed by a hush of almost palpable terror rises at one end of the camp, announcing that one of the Horsemen has left his tent. Slaves all over stop what they were doing to stand with bowed heads. The man who swiftly strides through the silent crowd hardly seems to notice them as he orders them back to their respective duties. It does not matter. They know he sees everything, knows everything.

War, Death, Pestilence and Famine: without their masks and war paint they look all too human. To the slaves they are more: demons, or horrible gods. Only the Watcher understands what they really are -- she and those she has recruited to her cause.

A shadow falls over her. Quiet; no clink of armour. Death. Death, she knows, goes by the name of Methos in what could be called normal life in the camp. He is looking over her shoulder. She forms one bread, then another and another before he speaks.

"How's my favourite slave today?"

"Still alive." She does not turn to look at him.

"Turn around. I want to see your face." His voice is neutral.

She finishes the bread she is forming and puts it on the stack. Then she turns.

Half a smile is playing around his lips, but his eyes are serious. He squats and cups her cheek in a calloused but clean hand.

"Kronos needs to learn some respect for beauty," he says, softly.

"It will heal."

"Of course it will." He releases her, smirking. Her stoicism never fails to amuse him. She averts her eyes and waits, but he stays silent, so she finally turns back to her work. She feels his gaze in her back. From the corner of her eye, she can see that the village girl has shrunk into herself so as not to attract the attention of the Horseman. When she takes the first bread from the hot ashes she hears his clothes rustle behind her. He is getting up.

"Give me that," he commands.

She hands him the bread, watches him take a bite and smile. For a moment he looks utterly harmless: a man eating bread. Then his eyes wander to the villager cowering in the sand.

"You. Get up."

The girl complies, shaking. A bit of skin, startlingly white in comparison with her arms and face that have been exposed to the sun all her life, shows through a long rent in her rough, dirty dress. She hasn't been issued new clothing yet. No use fitting a new slave who still has to be broken in with a good dress that will only be spoilt in the process.

The girl is too frightened to feel ashamed of her exposed skin. Death motions her closer, and she takes a step towards him, afraid to approach, even more afraid to disobey. She stands with downcast eyes. He brushes a strand of hair from her face with a caressing slowness, then, suddenly, grips her by the nape of her neck, forcing her to look him in the eyes.

The Watcher, observing the scene from the corner of her eye while baking the next bread, is struck again by the girl's youth. Barely of marriage age, that one. A sudden, burning hatred for the man called Death, the Immortal who has been Death to thousands of mortals, makes her tremble violently for a moment, until she manages to control her body's reaction and remind herself that it is not her part to judge. Observe and record. Observe and record, nothing else; this is what she was born for.

So she observes, as she has been observing for two years.

He lets the girl go at last, and she instinctively takes a step backwards, away from him. His face that has shown a kind of amusement a second ago grows expressionless. He turns away.

"Clean up the mess in my tent." He seems to address the air. The girl glances at the Watcher, who gives her a furtive nod. The girl hurries to obey.

Unlike his brothers, who always relish the spilling of blood, Death kills with an almost bored efficiency. Yet he gets inventive when deploying his skills for an audience. The Watcher knows that the village girl will find a body in his tent, killed in some gruesome and novel way. He prefers the breaking of a selected victim's mind to simple bloodshed, and he never chooses those who are broken easily. He enjoys to see them fight back, to see them grasp at straws and build hope around illusions.

***

"What is going on here?" Pestilence, debatably the leader of the Four, had asked as she was crouching on the ground, cradling her arm. War had stood over her like a vengeful giant, Famine facing him with bared teeth.

"Caspian tried to take her for himself. He damaged her just to spite me!" It was her first hint that they were human after all - the monster sounded like a petulant child.

"Don't whine," Famine purred. "The important bits still work." He leered.

"Aren't there enough women around to satisfy both of you?" the leader of the Horsemen asked, exasperated. He grabbed her hair and dragged her upright, looking her up and down. "I see." There was a glint in his eyes. "Still, a woman's not worth fighting about."

The dagger was at her throat, nicking her skin, but she knew this would not, could not be the end.

"Don't," she said, hoarsely.

"I'm afraid you don't have a say in the matter," he grinned, mirthfully.

"Let her speak, Kronos." Death, for the first time, made his presence known. "This may prove amusing."

She ignored the pain in her right arm and looked Pestilence in the eyes, unflinching and proud. It gave her satisfaction to see shock in them when, a second later, she grabbed his private parts through his tunic and said: "I can serve you so much better alive."

Death laughed. "It seems she's bent on making herself indispensable," he said.

The days that followed made her regret they had decided to let her live.

***

The village girl gone, Death helps himself to another bread. He sits down to eat, with an undeniable grace that makes her think, not for the first time, that if she did not know who he was, she would consider him a handsome man. She quells the thought immediately. Looking towards his tent at the sound of a sobbing cry, she sees the girl rush from the tent to retch violently near the entrance.

"So you found a new plaything," she says.

"Don't push your luck." He is still amused, but there is something dangerous behind the amusement.

***

She was not tattooed. The Horsemen might know the symbol; it was a risk the Watchers were not prepared to take.

They sent her to the north-east, hunting rumours. For three seasons she traveled through parts where the Horsemen were little more than a tale told by the fireside. Then the tales grew more substantial, the people more frightened, and she knew she was approaching the parts where the Horsemen were riding.

A year after she had left the Temple, she came upon the fire-blackened ruins of a newly destroyed village. As she stood looking at burnt, shrunken bodies, she understood why the natives spoke of the End of the World.

She found a village to live in, and a man to marry. She lived the life of a farmer's wife, waiting, praying for her fate to fulfil itself. And one day, fate came riding over the hills, bearing down on her village with the thunder of hooves. Crying, she stood among the burning houses, the fallen body of her husband at her feet, but when they grabbed her and threw her over a horse's back, she felt a great quiet.

***

"Brothers!"

War does not exit his tent, he erupts from it, bellowing his enthusiasm for the new day out at the top of his lungs, making the slaves cringe. Looking around, his round face beaming, he spots Death and heads for where he and the Watcher are sitting. He claps Death on the back with one large paw.

"Methos! What are you doing? Sitting on the ground, eating dry bread? Is this a meal befitting Death of the Horsemen?"

Death cocks his head to look up at his brother. "I consider it one of the benefits of our life that there are no rules that tell me how I should live. Thus, should I decide to have plain bread for breakfast, or even find an unlikely delight in the slaves' gruel, this would indeed be a meal befitting a Horseman, if only because I declare it so. Besides, this bread is good."

War is confused. He does not like long sentences, and he suspects that he has just been mocked. Yet after a tiny pause, Death smiles up at him with genuine friendliness and says: "No matter. I'll join you for a more appropriate meal, Silas."

He gets up, carelessly dropping the bread. As the two Horsemen amble away, the Watcher hears War talking to his brother in a worried tone.

"That slave, she's been around too long."

"She pleases me."

"Oh, she's a good lay all right. But there's always the next raid, brother! Kronos says if we keep her around too long, she might give the others ideas . . ."

They cannot know that she has already done so. A sizeable number of the slaves in the Horsemen's camp now know of Immortals, and of the Watchers' sacred mission. This is how the Invisible Temple has emerged. Those who have been accepted into its rows bear their slavery with a strange kind of confidence. The Watcher has made them take the oaths, and they are comforted by the knowledge that their lives serve a higher purpose. Every bit of information that they can glean from the Horsemen's conversations or behaviour is carried to every member of the Invisible Temple in a matter of moments.

Every once in a while, one of them makes an attempt to flee, to carry their gathered knowledge to the Temple. So far, all of them have been hunted down and killed; tortured. Yet they keep on trying. Their faith that they will be rewarded for their efforts in the next life lends to them the recklessness of fanatics.

***

"Tonight," she whispers to the other slaves as she walks through the camp on her errands, "tonight," and the word spreads through the Temple, and an air of expectation lies over its members. Tonight the Horsemen are going on a raid; tonight, when they are gone, one of the Temple will try to make her escape. They are in favourable country -- the hills around them offer plenty of hiding places. They have collected and hid provisions for her. Maybe, yes, maybe this time they will succeed . . .

***

At midday, the Watcher is summoned to Death's tent. She is surprised. After the happenings of the morning, she had believed he would busy himself with the new girl for the rest of the day. He is standing with his back to the tent flap as she enters. For a long while, they both stand silent, as if waiting for directions. Then he speaks, in a cold, flat voice.

"Undress."

She does as she is told. He does not turn, but keeps talking to the tent wall.

"Tell me about yourself."

"What is there to tell? I'm a slave."

"Oh yes. Such an exemplary slave, so eager to please." His voice is dripping with derision. Then, it goes flat again: "Who are you? Who were you, before you became ours?"

"I was a farmer's wife. You killed my husband and everyone I knew when you burned down our village."

"You are no farmer's wife. I've been married to farmer's wives. If you were a farmer's wife, then only for a little while."

"Maybe. But that is of no consequence, for now I am your slave. I do as you bid me. My life is yours, to use or take as you please."

"You speak with an accent. Where did you live before you came here?"

"It does not matter anymore."

He turns. There is something approaching anger behind the carefully controlled coolness of his face, and something else. His gaze wanders across her body, lingers for a moment on the dark bruise on her side, then comes to rest on her breasts. They all like her breasts; even go so far as to avoid starving her, to prevent them from sagging. As he stares at her naked body she studies his face. She has known far worse humiliations, but there is a new kind of awkwardness to this.

"Come closer," he says.

She closes her eyes and suppresses a shudder of revulsion, expecting him to touch her, yet nothing happens. Then she feels his breath by her ear, the tips of his hair brushing her shoulder. He is leaning down to her, whispering in her ear: "You're not a slave, and we both know it."

She opens her eyes as he draws back from her, and sees him standing across the tent, and it is as if a mask has fallen. There is a feverish gleam in his eyes.

"What are you?" he says.

She can't help the shiver that runs down her spine. _What does he know?_ Silence lies between them like the desert as they stare at each other.

A slave would never meet her master's gaze like this. A slave would never stand so proudly, albeit naked -- would never challenge him so openly with her words. Does he see that he will never own her, because she will endure anything, for the Temple? Does he see that, whatever he will tell her to do, she will do, but for the Temple, not because he ordered it?

He laughs, a short, tired sound. His shoulders seem to slump a little. Maybe it is the humanity of that gesture that makes her say, before she can stop herself: "So you were married to a farmer's wife. . . You were a farmer, once?" She speaks softly, almost to herself.

His eyes grow sharp again at once, and fix her with a long, unyielding glance.

"It does not matter anymore," he says.

She lets out a breath she only then realizes she has been holding. Dodging his questions as she has done earlier is one thing; posing questions to _him_ is unheard of.

"What happened?" she asks, her throat raw with her own audacity. "What happened to turn a farmer into Death?"

The interior of the tent seems far removed from the Horsemen's camp, far removed from the screams and the laughter and from routinely dealt death, far even from the Invisible Temple.

Then the spell is broken, as Death speaks.

"Nothing. Everything." A wry smile passes over his face. "Time happened. Change. You live long enough, and that's all that remains."

He turns away.

"Go."

She gathers up her clothes and leaves, dazed.

***

Outside, she hurriedly pulls her dress over her head. Then her legs begin to tremble, the aftershock of the odd conversation knocking the breath from her. She has to sit down on the spot.

_You're not a slave._ She understands now what that means. _You are free; I cannot break you. We have to go on pretending for the sake of the others, but I respect your freedom._

Her head swims.

If what she has just come to understand is true, then she has to make use of it. She has to win his trust, however much she may abhor him, to find out as much as she can. This is a chance, she realizes, that few Watchers get.

She gets up, and runs to tell the others.

***

Dusk has fallen and the Horsemen are gone. The slaves are asleep, huddled around themselves on the cold floor all about the camp. At the end of a day of hard work, filled with the fear of death and worse, weighed down by hopelessness, they are too worn out to stay awake or plan an escape. Their sleep is like unconsciousness, deep and empty, and safe for at least this one night.

The Invisible Temple, although scattered and pretending to sleep like everyone else, are awake -- awake and praying. They do not dare to get up and tell their sister who is leaving farewell. Someone might still be awake and see them, some slave who, for some reason or other, cannot sleep, and who might grow suspicious and betray them, hoping that it might earn her a reward. They do not dare to get up and walk their sister to the border of the wilderness, to hug her -- "May the gods be with you forever, and now go, go!" -- to see her dark shape disappear in the shadows.

***

"Get up! Get up, all of you!"

A rough hand grabs the Watcher's dress and drags her half the way up before she manages to scramble to her feet. Caspian, Famine, is grinning wildly at her. He lifts her up into the air, and, throwing her over his shoulder, yells: "She's here! I've got her!"

All the slaves are up, moaning and crying, their eyes large with panic, glittering in the moonlight. The Horsemen, in full attire, are among them, driving them like sheep. At Caspian's cry, his brothers push towards him through the frantic crowd. Their faces are painted, and the light of the moon, almost full, clothes the scene in the unreal colours of dream. War, Death, Pestilence and Famine. There is nothing human in them tonight. They are demons, gods of destruction.

She hits the ground hard. A few more ribs in her right side crack. She gasps with pain.

_Suddenly --_

Someone kicks her, shouts something at her.

_Suddenly she is a child again --_

What do they want from her?

_Sitting in a sun-speckled courtyard of the Temple under a tree --_

Why are they shouting so loud?

_With a man, yes, with her father --_

Four predatory faces are staring down at her: three full of greedy, gleeful expectation; one cold as stone.

_He's very serious, her father is. He's explaining something to her._

Pestilence squats down beside her. His unruly mane, a black bird's nest against the moon-bright sky, all of a sudden strikes her as the funniest thing she has ever seen, and she starts to giggle, painfully.

"I'm glad you're finding this so amusing," Pestilence says, "I would hate to be the only one who enjoys himself tonight." The painted swirls on his face move. Somewhere behind him, Death is a silhouette in the night.

"Methos. You should do the honours, I think," Pestilence grins hungrily.

_"To become a Watcher, you must be very sure of your calling," her father explains._

Something is thrown on the ground next to her. It is the body of the woman who has fled earlier. Her dead eyes regard the Watcher impassively. Dark, congealed blood is smeared across her face, black in the moonlight like the paint on the face of her killers. Her outstretched arm has fallen so that the tip of her first finger touches the Watcher's hand. Instinctively, she takes the hand in her own. It is still warm.

"Don't worry. She hasn't betrayed you." Death watches her face as the understanding sinks in. He has known all along.

_"It's a test for the strength of your belief."_

She holds the hand of the dead woman, grips it tightly, as if she hopes to find comfort in the touch, or give comfort -- as if she hopes they may still face this together. Sisters, the Watcher thinks. We are sisters. Walk ahead, sister mine -- I will follow.

_"You must be ready to sacrifice everything for the Temple."_

"You were betrayed long ago. Almost at the beginning, in fact." Death squats beside her, knife in hand.

_"On the day when you will take your oath, you will have to search your soul and decide if you can do this: if you can believe strongly enough to go to your own death and not be afraid, because you know you are doing what the gods meant you to do."_

"A Watcher among the Horsemen!" Pestilence chuckles. "Spying for the gods -- or is it spying on the gods? I always forget."

Death bares her arm by slicing off most of the sleeve of her dress. "It was clever of them not to tattoo you." He begins to draw the symbol into the skin of her wrist, slowly, accurately. Bloods wells up in the wake of the dagger. "You must have been born and bred for this task. Quite an effort. I'm almost flattered."

_"If you believe strongly enough, you will be able to bear anything. Sometimes, we believe --"_

"We decided to let you play at being Watchers for a while. You, especially, made a fascinating subject for study." He traces the lines of her face with a finger, and his eyes are alive with lust, power, need, and something else. Again she feels a bout of hysterical laughter rise in her throat, but this time she manages to control the impulse.

"But your game grew tedious to watch, and so we decided it was time to end it," Pestilence puts in. "It ends tonight, for you and for everyone else, whether they were part of your little schemes or not. It ends now."

_"Sometimes we believe --"_

She is looking into Death's face and is not afraid.


End file.
